To-do list:
- Consensus was to rewrite Asian Airhead's description to remove the Alpha Bitch aspects of the trope and focus solely in on the dumb/scatterbrained traits, and clean examples.
Asian Airhead is currently soft split into two types, one of which doesn't seem all that essential to the trope. This was discussed in the Trope Idea Sounding Board [1] when someone tried to propose a trope similar to it, but to summarize, the two types the trope has are:
- Asian, vapid, Alpha Bitch and,
- Ditzy (often pretty) asian person
It's the first "type" that is the problem, mostly because being an Alpha Bitch has little to do with the rest of the trope, which explicitly is a reaction to counter Asian and Nerdy. In addition, I don't think being Asian is a significant addition to Alpha Bitch to warrant separating out examples from that trope.
The wick check here confirms that the trope is rarely used to cover the Alpha Bitch type as well, with a breakdown of:
- Dumb and Ditzy: 28 (56%)
- Mean Girl / Alpha Bitch: 3 (6%)
- Other / Unclear: 2 (4%)
- ZCE: 17 (34%)
I'll also say that while doing the check there were many examples that had some version of "they aren't necessarily Book Dumb or outright stupid as they are a Cloud Cuckoolander". So if there is any kind of variation to the trope worthy of a potential Internal Subtrope, it seems like it'd be better spent covering the difference between being genuinely stupid (neither Book Smart nor Street Smart) and being a Cloud Cuckoolander, though I feel like this difference isn't unique to this trope.
Recommendation: Rewrite the description to remove the Alpha Bitch aspects of the trope, focus solely in on the dumb/scatterbrained traits, and clean wicks.
Wick check:
Wick Check: 50- Dumb and Ditzy: 28 (56%)
- Mean Girl / Alpha Bitch: 3 (6%)
- Other / Unclear: 2 (4%)
- ZCE: 17 (34%)
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Kuki Sanban (a.k.a. Numbuh Three) is an adorable, girly, kindhearted, rather prissy girl who is personified as being extremely scatterbrained. That Other Wiki says that she is only acting stupid so she doesn't feel sad.
- W.I.T.C.H. Main Cast - Hay Lin: It has less to do with her being dumb, and more about being a hyperactive ditz. Also, while can still appear to be a complete airhead, she's much smarter than she looks, especially in the comics. Her "having her head in the clouds", so to speak, is also a play on her air theming and motif, as those are traits often associated with air aligned individuals.
- Web Animation/Emirichu: Self-admitted, and often teased for being a "ditzy anime girl".
- Victorious: In "Driving Tori Crazy", while most of the girls in the car with Beck were of less than normal intellect, the Asian one in the front seat kind of took the prize with the constant gum twirling and vacant way of speaking.
- True Jackson, VP: Lulu subverts this, since she is shown to actually be really smart, but still acts goofy.
- Charm School: Eventually averted with Leilene, although early episodes did show she struggled a lot with education. During the debate episode she even reveals she only made it to about 10th grade before dropping out of high school.
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: Type I. She's a beautiful, rich, popular young girl... who just happens to be dense as a brick. It turns out that the role was not written for an Asian girl, as it's supposed to be a parody of Paris Hilton. In fact, Ashley Tisdale was originally going to play London with Brenda Song in the Maddie role, but they ended up being switched because the girls played the parts better. This is referenced in the alternate dimension episode, where the girls are their original intended roles.
- The Good Place S1E04 "Jason Mendoza": The Filipino Jason (aka, Jianyu) is very immature and very stupid. His friend Pillboi is much the same.
- Cobra Kai S3E9 "Feel the Night": We already knew Kyler isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and trigonometry isn't exactly basic math, but even an average high school student should be able at least pass the course without worrying as Kyler does. He also doesn't seem to realize the Toilet Humour in how he is describing his stress...
- Asian and Nerdy: Inverted: Sam is Book Dumb (and not particularly street smart, either).
- The Shadowspawn: Michiko is the darkest type imaginable. Also a subversion, since she's not nearly as stupid as she wants you to think.
- The World of Suzie Wong: Gwennie Lee, although she's more innocent than actually stupid.
- The School for Good and Evil (2022): Kiko is Asian (or at least Asian decent) and the only thought occupying her head is having a boyfriend.
- Lemonade Mouth: Blown all the way to hell and back by Stella, who is visionary, leader and driving force of not only Lemonade Mouth, but in the effort to give the students a voice, and the one who gets Mel to build the music hall for the school.
- Played straight and entirely subverted at once in the book: it's revealed that Stella only scored an IQ of 84 and was later diagnosed with a number of learning disabilities. She still acts exactly the same as she does in the movie - and in fact this is what drives her to act with vision and leadership.
- Also played with in the film: while the rest of her family have more traditional intellectual gifts and her brothers are child geniuses, Stella's advanced and very visible leadership ability is now considered an advanced natural talent/gifted ability.
- Crazy Rich Asians: Araminta is nice, beautiful, exuberant, and so consumed by "wedding brain" that she completely fails to notice the bullying that Rachel was getting.note
- Anna Maria Perez de Tagle: Her characters are this, but not all of them in the list.
- The show CAKE gives us Miracle, a young Filipino girl, gorgeous, glamorous and, of course, stupid. Also the Rich Bitch (noticing a pattern?).
- Ashley Dewitt on Hannah Montana. Basically the same character, but much stupider, with a different name.
- Camp Rock's Ella Pador, only she's nicer... in the end. She stays nice in the sequel.
- You (2018) - Season 2: Luna is the only one of the trio not to mention her literary interests, only wanting to date someone who does (granted, Haley's "Four Hour Workweek" doesn't impress Joe either). She then spends the rest of the date making Joe take photos of her.
- Total Pokemon Warring Nations - Jiao Wei: Subverted. She isn't the brightest person, but despite this she's a very good saleswoman who can easily manipulate people into buying her goods.
- The Baby-Sitters Club (2020) - Claudia: Played with; she is Book Dumb but a talented artist and very clever.
- Surviving High School - Kimi Chen: To an extent. She is more focused on fashion and popularity than education and occasionally has her Asian Airhead moments, but is conscious and insecure about the talents, relationships, aspirations and physicality she possesses—or the lack thereof.
- Skins Generation One - Anwar: Downplayed. He's an extremely rare South Asian and male example but he is quite ditzy.
- Ready Jet Go! - Earthies - Lillian: Downplayed. She's Asian, but is slightly ditzy at times such as not knowing what perspective is, telling Mindy what her "surprise" birthday present was, and easily believes that Halloween is magical. Not to mention the whole "clouds are made of cotton candy" debacle in "Fact Or Fiction?".
- Miraculous The Phoenix Rises Team Arctic - Morgan: Downplayed. While she's not remotely dumb, she's still an immature Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
- How I Met Your Mother: Cameo Characters - Cathy: Most of her rants won't make sense or even get closer to the original question.
- Groove Squad - Ping's of Asian-descent (possibly Chinese, especially since her name is of Chinese-origin) and she's definitely rather ditzy, but she isn't "unintelligent," necessarily.
- Dimension 20 The Unsleeping City - Ricky Matsui: Ricky is Japanese, good-looking, and, in the words of his own love interest, "so fucking dumb." Ricky, for his part, seems both aware of this and unselfconscious about it.
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Main Characters - Josh Chan: A rare male example of this (and inversion of Asian and Nerdy). He's not an idiot, but he tends to be slow on the uptake.
- Andi Mack - Brittany: She's Asian and not quite the quickest mind around.
- Flower Drum Song: Linda, the Ur-Example. She's a Type A - antagonistic and something of an Alpha Bitch, also functioning as Mei Li's romantic rival.
- With Pearl And Ruby Glowing Antagonists: They're adopted from Thailand, albeit far less stereotypical than their original canon versions, and are catty drug-taking party girls.
- The Mighty B! - Gwen Wu: Type A, as she's Chinese and a vapid Alpha Bitch character. However, she mostly acts the part, as she knows how to run a business.
- Summertime Saga - Josephine Sato: She's lazy and obsessed with her phone whenever she's not trying to piss off her dad in the hopes of getting fired.
- Single Parents - Miggy Park: A rare male example with Miggy, whose list of potential careers included "abbreviated jobs" like CEO, CFO, and UTI, along with "millionaire."
- Glenn Martin, DDS: Wendy is sometimes this, Depending on the Writer.
- Pretty Dudes - Five-Token Band:
- In the first season:
- Mess of Woe Mexican Guy
- Asian Airhead Guy
- Nerdy White Guy
- The Casanova Black Guy
- The Asian Cool Big Sis
- and the Korean Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- In the first season:
- RE: Prince of Nigeria: Horai. Subverted.
- Midnight Club: Gina in II.
- 10 Things I Hate About You: Dawn, Chastity's Beta Bitch.
- Instant Star: Karma, the type one "Trixie Tang."
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: London is the Trope Codifier and Trope Namer of Type 1 ("The Tipton"). She's played by Brenda Song, the standard girl for this role.
- Spy High: Jennifer is a borderline Type One
- Margaret Cho
- The Office (US): Secondary Characters - Kelly: One of the few South Asian examples of this trope.
- The Most Popular Girls In School Important Family Members - Mrs. Zales: Type 1.
- The Kindness Of Devils Main Characters - Erin Hasegawa: Not this trope at all, but plays it to lure a murderous vampire into a trap, even lampshading it by name and how sick it makes her.
- The Fairly OddParents - Major - Trixie Tang: Type One, although she lacks prominently Asian features and her ethnicity is unclear (Tang is primarily a Chinese surname but can be Korean as well.). Furthermore, her father appears to be Caucasian.
- The Blockbuster Buster - E-Joy
- Power Rangers Operation Overdrive - Dax Lo: Type 2; just try to deny it. Possibly the only male example in the entire franchise.
- Littlest Pet Shop 2012 Recurring Characters - Youngmee Song: On occasion.
- Fanboy and Chum Chum - Yo: Type 2. Though it's not like everyone else is exactly a genius.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 22nd 2023 at 12:14:29 PM
Paging ~amathieu13 to the thread. Anyway, I agree with the rewrite because it's more in line with the name than the current definition is.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.Agree with rewrite.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailOh hey Reiterating my POV in the linked thread that I don't think "Asian popular girl" has tropeworthy standing and this should be refocused on the dumbness, as a subversion of Asian and Nerdy.
Rewrite.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope ReportRewrite.
I wanted to look at where the idea of "type one" came from, but the archived discussion refers to a YKTTW thread that never got linked from there. I did find the original meandering description, though. The "Asian Alpha Bitch" might be a yardable concept but it probably doesn't have much hope attracting examples bolted onto this name and trope.
Yarding that definition sounds fine.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.How is Asian Alpha Bitch meaningfully different from Alpha Bitch?
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailTo the rewrite idea
Now that you mention it, yeah, it might be The Same, but More Specific.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.to rewriting.
Removing the Alpha Bitch requirement. I can't think of any reason why it should be tied to a subversion of Asian and Nerdy.
Edited by Tabs on Mar 21st 2023 at 12:07:50 PM
I mean the only reason why Asian Airhead is tropeworthy is because it's a subversion of Asian and Nerdy. Otherwise this trope is an asian character who is dumb, which is chairs.
Agreed.
Rewrite the description.
Subversion is probably the wrong word, as the way we use it on this site would require an in-universe set up that the Asian character is smart before they're revealed to be an idiot. Inversion is probably closer, in the "turn the stereotype on its head" way. But there are a lot of offsite notions that "dumb Asian character" is a legit response to Asian and Nerdy, e.g. [1] [2] [3]
You're good. My unclear wording
Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 22nd 2023 at 4:27:27 AM
My mistake- the broader, off-site meaning of "subvert" ("upturn convention"). Most works I've encountered with a vapid or ditzy Asian character seems to be deliberately doing the opposite of Asian and Nerdy. Even those without an in-universe setup or confirmation from the creators that they were going for the Stereotype Flip just have that "the proportion of geeky, super smart, studious Asian characters in media is lopsided and I'm gonna rectify that" vibe.
Let's go ahead and rewrite.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.Reuse Sandbox.Asian Airhead? I know it was just used for a wick check and cut, but I figure it's the easiest space to rewrite in.
Edited by Yindee on Mar 23rd 2023 at 10:35:48 AM
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailLooks like you already did a lot of the legwork. Some thoughts:
- Should we go ahead and deemphasize Always Female, given the media focus on recent male examples?
- Probably needs emphasis that this is a "relative-to-non-Asians" characterization, no? Examples with all-Asian casts that happen to have one or two dummies (e.g. Crazy Rich Asians) shouldn't be on there.
agree to both.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
To-do list:
Asian Airhead is currently soft split into two types, one of which doesn't seem all that essential to the trope. This was discussed in the Trope Idea Sounding Board [1] when someone tried to propose a trope similar to it, but to summarize, the two types the trope has are:
It's the first "type" that is the problem, mostly because being an Alpha Bitch has little to do with the rest of the trope, which explicitly is a reaction to counter Asian and Nerdy. In addition, I don't think being Asian is a significant addition to Alpha Bitch to warrant separating out examples from that trope.
The wick check here confirms that the trope is rarely used to cover the Alpha Bitch type as well, with a breakdown of:
I'll also say that while doing the check there were many examples that had some version of "they aren't necessarily Book Dumb or outright stupid as they are a Cloud Cuckoolander". So if there is any kind of variation to the trope worthy of a potential Internal Subtrope, it seems like it'd be better spent covering the difference between being genuinely stupid (neither Book Smart nor Street Smart) and being a Cloud Cuckoolander, though I feel like this difference isn't unique to this trope.
Recommendation: Rewrite the description to remove the Alpha Bitch aspects of the trope, focus solely in on the dumb/scatterbrained traits, and clean wicks.
Wick check:
Wick Check: 50Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 22nd 2023 at 12:14:29 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.